I agree. I would sign some sort of legal contract to get this trans in a heartbeat. I totally understand where David is coming from. It sucks to think after following this development since the beginning I may never get to try one out.

 

The group buy would be the best option. Pay yourself back and make the money. Then the people who value innovation and proven performance, who are the only customers worth dealing with, would still come to you for future transmission parts. The people who copy or buy copies would never have been a customer anyhow. Maybe order 20 bell housings and sell those and the other upgrades that were custom after the initial R&D is paid for. Then you have a new income stream.

 

Just re-read all the 38 pages and happy to hear the car is up and running can't wait to hear how testing on track goes!

I too would be all for signing of a waiver of some sort to help alleviate the copying of work done by David.

The way he describes jumping in, firing it up, and cruising to work sounds flat out awesome.

 

I have considered doing a legal contract on these and having a lawyer draw it up nice an tidy. Then "leasing" the transmissions in the contract with the contract stating that the transmissions CAN NOT BE taken apart for any reason or there are legal actions that can be taken. I don't know how this would work out. I know there are race engine companies that do this and the engines can't be taken apart.

Bottom line is it sucks to see how many things we started off doing have been "copied" over the 25+ years of doing this. People take simple things for granted but when you originate the idea and it becomes the standard for everyone else it just pisses you off.

For example, when the EVO was released (I've told this story many times before) people built upper i/c pipes for the car, ALL OFF THE KITS followed the stock routing. I took one look at that long spaghetti looking tube and threw it all in the trash. Grabbed a lightweight battery, built a mount and then made the plumbing and engine bay look awesome. Tym was working here then and told me I was an idiot and nobody was going to buy an i/c pipe that required they buy a battery kit to run it. I told him that was fine, I'd have the only one on my car but wasn't building it like everyone else. Now every shop has a battery kit and i/c pipes to fit and look like ours. Is it some magical break through? No, but I wasn't copying everyone else's stupidity and once we did ours, everyone else followed. The list of parts like that and ideas are probably in the hundreds at this point.

Supplying all of our parts to countless shops over the years to just see them finally get large enough and find a fabricator to basically flat out copy what we have been selling them has taken it's toll on me. We don't even accept new wholesalers anymore, it's just a way to make less money selling our product to have them eventually copy it.

So this trans is going to stay protected or not produced which will fully protect our hard work and huge investment.

 

BTW, I got my GoPro camera to work, I've never used one. I plan to do some videos of driving the car soon from inside the car. If the roads are dry tonight I may do some then. For those of you who don't follow us on Facebook, stop by and like the page, the link is in my signature. I put a lot of stuff up there that never makes it anywhere else.

I also use Instagram and have a You Tube channel.

 

I don't have as much time for FB as the rest of the kiddos, please keep updating on here!

 

Draw up that legal agreement and put it on your site for those interested to see where your coming from. I'm sure you will be surprised by how many of us that will be loyal and have no problem signing one!

Disclosure, you will sell to the customer not to a shop unless already in your pool of vendors. We can register the trans to our cars by providing a vin number and title info showing who owns the vehicle.

 

I saw first hand how far people go to copy BR parts, very sad. I don't blame you for doing what your doing DB.

 

The vin number and title info thing won't work. If the owner decides to sell his car then the new owner has no legal contract between him and Buschur and all hell will break loose. Unless of course Buschur adds a "no sell" policy to the contract, but then things will get very complicated... There will always be a loop hole, which is why I don't blame Buschur for keeping this a one-off build.

 

It sucks that people copy your design and hard work, but I think that will always be an issue with revolutionary new parts. This is even more true because this transmission will change the drag racing world for Evos.
You deserve the reward for all the hard work you put in to get this transmission to perform, don't let the haters and copycats kill your motivation for improvement.

 

You need decent council IMHO. As a product designer/inventor of 20+ years human ****tyness in business is simply how the world works.

You need to protect the specific parts processes and solutions that make this work. A general utility patten will not work as many people have put an auto transmission in a car before and the examiners will not care what car or transmission specifically.

It is the small very specific problems, custom made parts and bespoke engineering that cost you the money and is your intellectual property that you can very effectively protect.

In terms of actually litigating people that violate your IP. I think it should be pretty easy. Big companies that could out spend you in a legal battle would not be interested in such a niche product, and the smaller guys can't out spend you/ are not interested in a protracted legal battle. Furthermore the circle of Evo enthusiasts that are hardcore enough to need this should be pretty easy to keep tabs on...

Anyway, you know all this. More of just a don't get discouraged and GL!

 

Nice job on a awesome creation dave. Hopefully you get the legalities figured out so you can start making some return on your investment.

Edit: just noticed it would be priced around 10 ish grand.

 

Drove the car again last night and to work today, it's pretty awesome!

 

Ahhhhh, stop teasing us... Vids or it didn't happen!

 

Did you post the driving video on FB? I don't see it there, but it seems like things get jumbled around easily on FB.